Many years ago Bill Moyers made a documentary on the Secret Government in the US, a scathing critique of the Executive Branch of that carries out secretive operations contrary to the wishes and values of the American people. In the video interview below, Moyers presents an updated version of this same phenomenon, called “the Deep State.” It’s a fascinating interview with government insider Mike Lofrgren, who has also written this related article for the Bill Moyers program. Here is the original Bill Moyers documentary on the Secret Government:
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This section contains brief descriptions and links to interesting video material that is available online. The views expressed in these videos, as well as the credit and copyright, in each case belongs exclusively to the filmmaker(s) and/or producer(s).
The other inconvenient truth
Johnathan Foley is director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. He recently received a Heinz Award, which is given annually to people who improve the human condition and environment through work in areas ranging from poverty alleviation to the arts and sciences. The award citation for Foley begins as follows: A scientist on the leading edge of understanding global ecosystems and the study of complex environmental systems, Jonathan Foley, Ph.D., has dedicated his career to examining and finding solutions for the challenge of feeding an ever-growing population while at the same time protecting our planet…
Predictably irrational (TED lectures by Dan Ariely)
Dan Ariely is a behavioural economics researcher, most famous for his two books Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, both of which challenge the assumption of rationality at the heart of classical or “rational” economics. As a behavioural economist, Ariely is interested in showing the multitude of ways in which the human mind departs from the norms of rationality. In this series of TED lectures, Ariely uses optical illusions and humorous anecdotes to expose in a vivid way some of the biases of the human mind and the predictable mistakes most of us make in judgement and decision-making. More…
Why online privacy matters (TED lecture by Alessandro Acquisti)
In this informative and also humorous TED lecture, Allesandro Acquisti, a researcher on the behavioural economics of privacy, talks about the current state of privacy online and why we should care about it. He concludes his talk with the following thought: “I do believe that one of the defining fights of our time will be the fight for the control over our personal information. The fight over whether big data will become a force for freedom rather than a force which will manipulate us. Right now, many of us do not even know that the fight is going on. But…
The internet and mind-change (lecture by Susan Greenfield)
In this fascinating lecture, Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist and professor of Pharmacology at Oxford University, talks about the effects of a digitized world on the human brain. She argues that the brain’s frontal cortex, the area responsible for abstract thought and analysis, is significantly altered in adolescents growing up with a high exposure to digital technologies. Many of the points made in this talk are consistent with Sherry Turkle’s findings on the happiness of contemporary “digital natives”. This is not only interesting material, it also has practical significance for every parent and every adolescent growing up today. On her website,…
Do the Math (documentary)
Bill McKibben is one of the greatest environmental writers and activists of our time. In 1989 he wrote The End of Nature, which is considered by many to be the first book on global warming written for a general audience. Since then he has written countless articles, given hundreds if not thousands of public lectures, and is the main organizer of the 350.org movement to solve the climate crisis. One year ago McKibben published an influential article in Rolling Stone magazine entitled “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math.” The thesis of the article is that there are three significant numbers that everyone needs…
Propaganda (documentary)
The film “Propaganda” purports to be a film smuggled out of North Korea. The narrator claims that she was approached, while on holiday in South Korea, by two alleged North Korean defectors, who presented her with a DVD originating from North Korea, asking her to translate it and upload it to the internet. The film features a surprisingly accurate analysis of contemporary western media and society. It features quotes from many well-respected intellectuals and manages to connect the dots in a very clear fashion. It does not falsify information or statistics or take any text, audio, or video material out of…
Another hero
A recently created Wikipedia entry on Edward Snowden read as follows: Edward Joseph Snowden (born 1984) is an American technical contractor, a former CIA employee, and a traitor. Snowden released classified material on top-secret United States National Security Agency (NSA) programs including the PRISM surveillance program to The Guardian and The Washington Post in June 2013. PRISM is a top-secret government surveillance program, in operation since 2007, that enables the NSA to access the servers of nine major Internet companies, including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo! and Facebook, to collect data on the emails, documents, audio and video chats, photographs, and connection logs of not only Americans but also billions of people around the world…
How to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (lecture by Norman Finkelstein)
Norman Finkelstein is one of the clearest, most informed, and most courageous commentators on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He has been speaking out and writing about the conflict for most of his adult life and has paid a heavy price for his candor and integrity on the issue. In the lecture below Finkelstein lays out the reasons why a solution to this conflict is a distinct possibility, dissects some of the propaganda surrounding the issue, and defines the challenges that must be faced in order to achieve a solution. One of the great strengths of this lecture, like most others by…
HOME (documentary)
HOME is a documentary that highlights how human activities are altering planet earth. It’s a direct, and at times emotional, appeal to viewers to wake up and pay attention to what is going on around them. It is filled with stunning and disturbing footage from around the globe. But it’s not all doom and globe. The film ends with uplifting scenes and information on some of the positive changes that are taking place all around the world today and ways in which individuals can act, as citizens and consumers, to avert catastrophe. Video embedding has been disabled by request, but…
Concrete canvas shelters (creative responses)
From the category “creative responses to environmental challenges“: Concrete Canvas Shelters. These are inflatable concrete buildings, hardened shelters that require only water and air for construction. According to the manufacturer, they can be constructed by 2 people without any training in under an hour and are ready to use in 24 hours, making them a viable alternative to conventional emergency shelters. Contrary to the conventional light tents that only last for a limited amount of time and which use massive amounts of plastic and other synthetic fibre, these concrete shelters can last for decades, provide reliable shelter from even the heaviest storms,…
Born Rich (documentary)
As the rich get richer, their children live lives of abundance. One wealthy American family decided to make this point perfectly clear by naming their son “Lavish.” Considering his behavior, though, perhaps the parents should have named him “Obnoxious” instead: he openly boasts about his wealth on his instagram account (eloquently named “itslavishbitch“), he uses gold-plated staples, and shows off flying around the world with his family’s private jet. Lavish is just one of a growing number of insanely wealthy teenagers who are, contrary to their rather secretive plutocrat parents, not shy to show off their assets. These kids grow…
How Class Works (animated lecture by Richard Wolff)
The description for this short lecture reads as follows: Richard Wolff is an economist who has studied class issues for more than 40 years. In this animation and audio presentation, Wolff explains what class is all about and applies that understanding to the foreclosure crisis of 2007–2011. He argues that class concerns the “way our society splits up the output [and] leaves those who get the profits in the position of deciding and figuring out what to do with them… We all live with the results of what a really tiny minority in our society decides to do with the…
Wealth inequality in America
The following short video recently went viral and received more than 5.5 million views on YouTube. Using accurate and easy to comprehend graphs, it showcases the full scope of U.S. income inequality. The video is mostly based on a paper written and published by Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely, titled “Building a Better America—One Wealth Quintile at a Time.” It also references other data provided by a number of mainstream and progressive websites such as CNN, Motherjones and ThinkProgress. The video is receiving interesting responses from conservative and neo-liberals, who either challenge the accuracy of the video or attempt…
Aaron’s Law: law and justice in a digital age (lecture by Lawrence Lessig)
In his inaugural speech as the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, Lawrence Lessig, a cyber-law expert and self-described mentee of Aaron Swarts, talks about Aaron’s life, his activism, and his ideas for a better world. He also discusses copyright and the access to information–not in the sense of access to the latest entertainment products, but rather access to academic material, government data, and other important information.
Freedom and free software (interview with Eben Moglen)
Eben Moglen, founder and chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center, is the ideal mix of a law professor mix and a free-software technologist. In the following two-part interview with Slashdot – News for nerds he talks about free software, locked down information systems, and the importance of sharing. Here is a passage from the interview, which is well worth watching: “One of the things which everybody really now understands is that what makes the web a miracle also contains its dangerousness. The web was created for openness and power of construction. The browser made the web extremely easy to…
How the Dutch got their cycling paths
The story of the amazing bicycle paths in the Netherlands serves as an excellent role-model for anyone challenging the dominant form of urban transportation as it does away with common objections against promoting cycling, namely, that it is impractical or unpopular. The short video below outlines exactly how the Dutch got their cycling paths. There is no reason to believe this couldn’t be accomplished elsewhere. The official description of the video reads as follows: Road building traditions go back a long way and they are influenced by many factors. But the way Dutch streets and roads are built today is largely the…
How viable is Economics? (lecture by Steve Keen)
In the lecture below, Steve Keen, Associate Professor of Economics & Finance at the University of Western Sydney and author of Debunking Economics, questions the viability of modern neoclassical macroeconomics and its premises. His critique not only calls into question what is taught in virtually every economics department around the world, but also casts doubt on the typical policy recommendations made by neoclassical economists.
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The religion of capitalist economics
In earlier posts we mentioned the Oxfam report entitled “The cost of inequality: how wealth and income extremes hurt us all,” which outlined how the annual income of richest 100 people is enough to end global poverty four times over (i.e. while the annual net income of the world’s richest 100 billionaires is about $240 billion, the estimated cost of raising everyone worldwide above the $1.25 a day poverty line is about $66 billion). Recently Oxfam released another report, “Working for the Few: Political capture and economic inequality,” which maps the the general distribution of wealth on a global level.…
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